CHAPTER XIII
The next important event of my life in Tonquin was the first battle of Lang-Son. This was, to put it bluntly, a defeat for our troops and a really creditable victory for our enemies. Of course, reasons are given by the beaten side for every mishap. "Rank bad luck," for instance, unknown and unforeseen difficulties of country, unsuspected numerical superiority of the victors—anything and everything except a fair and straight admission of an honest beating in open warfare. Now these are all nonsense. Why should a general talk of "rank bad luck"? If he ascribes a defeat to this, may not people fairly ascribe his victories to good luck, and that alone? As for saying that the lie of the land was not known, that is merely a confession of ignorance, and worse—of carelessness in using his mounted men and his scouts. That an enemy may succeed in massing a great number of men at a given point without the knowledge or even suspicion of his opponent is quite conceivable; is it not what every general who knows his business tries to do? Read the history of any campaign and you will find that all the decisive actions were won by a swift and secret concentration of troops against an important place held by comparatively weak numbers. If I were a general, I should try to divide my enemy's forces and concentrate my own. Ah, when a man is beaten let him say so honestly; let him point out, if he wishes, how his opponent out-manœuvred him; and let him, in the name of all the gods, say nothing about luck, and, above all, be discreetly silent about anything that might hint at his own carelessness or the worthlessness of his scouts.
Now, let me try to show how our defeat came about. But first let me again say that the enemy beat us fairly and squarely in the engagement; that we retreated is good enough proof of that. Well, in the first place, the generals and the other officers firmly believed that the Black Flags and their allies would never be able to stand up against either our rifle fire or our charge. They had good reason, I admit, for assuming this. Unfortunately, they never reckoned on having to fight regular troops, officered and disciplined by Europeans, and it was these regular troops, well armed, well drilled, well led, and showing an amount of courage and staying power which one does not usually attribute to Asiatics, that drove us off the field. There were Black Flags and other barbarians in the fight, but these we could have easily first stalled off with the rifle and afterwards cut to pieces with the bayonet: it was really the men in uniforms who won the fight.
In the second place, we soldiers had learned to depend implicitly on our commanders. They had led us so well that we had as much confidence in their foresight and military skill as they had in our courage and steadfastness. The day before we were driven from Lang-Son no man even dreamt that our generals could be ignorant of anything occurring within a radius of a hundred miles; that a numerous and well-appointed army was within striking distance without their knowledge seemed, or would seem, if such a thing entered our minds, the fancy of a fool or the vain imagining of a coward. When the fight was going on we were surprised at the gallant manner in which our foes stood up against us. After a time, when more than once we had hurled them back with the bayonet, we recognised that we were dealing with the most formidable force that we had yet encountered. They gave us bullet for bullet, thrust for thrust. They were good men, and when the bayonets crossed they fought quietly and earnestly, and died without a murmur, almost without a groan. They could never hold out long against us in a charge—they were too light—and, another point to be noted, though the Asiatic will face death by the hands of the executioner with far more stoicism than the European, in the press of the battle the white man's enthusiasm is infinitely better than the yellow man's contempt of death. But in the firing they more than held their own, they were more numerous, their ammunition was evidently plentiful, and, to tell the plain truth, in spite of our bayonet charges they fairly shot us off the field.
To put the matter in a nutshell: we were defeated because our generals did not know the kind and the number of troops opposed to them. Let me add, our overweening confidence in our own prowess gave way to something very different as we saw ourselves slowly but surely forced back, and noted that the bayonet was not used to gain ground for a fresh advance but merely to drive back for a moment a too closely pressing enemy. At the same time it is but justice to admit that the defence was a good one. We retired, undoubtedly, but we showed no confusion beyond that certain amount that always shows on a battlefield, nay, even at a peaceful review.
I must now go on to my own part in the unlucky fight. After the first repulse my battalion had been constantly engaged in covering the rear of the retreat. On our right flank some French line regiment was busy in the same way. All the other troops, as far as I could judge—but a corporal sees very little of a battle outside the part borne in it by his own company—had been withdrawn, and were hard at work getting ready a new line of defence, while we who were just in front of the enemy kept them back in order to gain time. At last we could scarcely hold them at bay, and the order was given that our battalion should retire by companies. Nos. 2 and 4 quickly left the firing line; No. 1 was the next to leave, and my company poured in as hot a fire as we could until the order was given to run at top speed to the rear. I, as luck had it, had just loaded. I fired deliberately at a white man I saw about three hundred yards away cheering on the enemy, and saw him fall. I then turned and ran as fast as I could after my comrades. These were now some distance in advance, but as I went along I saw a good path leading slightly away from the point where the company would naturally fall into ranks again for another volley or two at the enemy and to allow the men time to regain their breath. This path, though slightly diverging from my route, at any rate would bring me away from the enemy, and I could, when at a safe distance from the Chinese, cut across country to rejoin my squad. I was running through rice-fields, and I knew that I could vastly increase my speed on the path. My one object at the time was to get away; I had no desire to fall, wounded or unwounded, into my pursuers' hands. I therefore turned and fled along the path, which ran by the side of a small stream.
As I ran, I noticed that the ground on the other side of the path gradually rose and at length formed a fairly high mound. This, however, I did not mind; every step took me further from the savages. I gradually slackened speed as my breath gave out, and instinctively flung away the cartridge, that I had fired at the white officer and put my hand into the pouch at my right side for a fresh one. Just as my thumb and forefinger closed on a cartridge, a sudden apparition met my gaze. I was rounding a corner, and there, not twenty yards away, was a Chinaman, evidently as astonished as I at the rencontre. I have never been so frightened in my life as at this totally unexpected meeting with an enemy in such a place. I had no power to take the cartridge from the pouch and fit it into the rifle. I was thunderstruck; I felt an awful horror of impending death. The Chinaman—he seemed a giant in my eyes—hastily tucked the butt of his gun into his right armpit and fired. I ducked instinctively, and at once knew that he had missed. The awkward way he fired and the sudden movement on my part had saved my life. In a second I had a cartridge in the rifle and the rifle at my shoulder; the Chinaman dropped his weapon and fled. Now the pathway was quite straight and level for a distance of about two hundred yards. There was no means of making a hasty escape to one side or the other; on the right ran the stream, on the left stood up a mound about eight or nine feet high. I saw, therefore, that I could let my man go a good distance without firing at him. This I desired, for my rifle kicked a little. When he was about a hundred and fifty yards away I aimed carefully at the back of his knee, pulled the trigger, and probably took him fairly in the small of the back. He flung up his arms, reeled, and fell face downwards in the water, and lay there quite still. I was satisfied. I felt a natural and yet an unreasonable anger with the man who had sought to take my life—natural, because every man hates those who attack him; unreasonable, because why should not he try to do to me as I should have tried to do to him were the positions changed? But soon my anger gave place to caution. I reloaded and clambered up the bank, determined to leave the path, as I could not know that other Chinese might not stop my way with better success than the first. After crossing through some low shrubs and brushwood the sound of volleys quickly repeated led me to the company. I fell into my proper place. Nobody said anything except the captain—a new man not with us a month—who sarcastically asked if I had seen a ghost.